Thea Gentzbourger​

1. How do geographers show information on maps?

       One of the tools they use are compass roses, a compass rose tells us which directions are the cardinal directions.. It also helps us find our absolute location.

       Another useful tool that geographers use is a global grid (aka. longitude, latitude). Longitude and latitude are lines that go horizontally and vertically, latitude lines are parallel but longitude lines are not, because they meet in the South Pole, and the latitude lines don't meet anywhere. Longitude and latitude lines help you find your absolute location. There are tons of different latitude and longitude lines but there are some that are more popular than otheres, some have names and some are just listed by degrees. The latitude line that is at 0 degrees is called the equator, the equator is where the sun hits the most meaning most countries around the equator are really hot. The longitude line that is at 0 degrees is called the prime meridian, the prime meridian splits the world in half and is also the International Date Line.

       Geographers also put different colors on different countries or states to mark different borders. Color helps you determine were a country/continent ends and were the other one starts. Color also helps you compare countries. They also use color to show different elevation in different regions. If it is a thematic map color helps us know where all the density of something is, like if all the red is all the people who like potatoes and the green is all the people who like carrots.

     On maps geographers also use symbols to represent something, and if there are symbols you need a legend to go along with it to tell you what the symbol represents.

2. Why do geographers use a variety of maps and tools to represent the world?

       One map can't hold all of the worlds data. Thats why they need different maps and some maps are thematic maps that represent something, and if you were lost on a road trip you couldn't use a thematic map to figure out where you are. If you were driving acroos the USA you would need a map that just shows the USA not the whole world or else you couldn't be able to see the different roads. That's why there are many different maps for different situations.

3. Will people be using paper maps in ten years?

       I think that people will still be using maps because there are a lot of factories that make maps and if you got rid of maps a lot of people would lose jobs. A lot of people also like to go hiking and camping and if your camping for 5 days a computers/phones battery wouldn't last that long so you would need to use a paper map. And if you're like me I like to srudy with hard cover things like a notebook and I would way rather study where places are on a paper map not online.